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What Makes an Employee Proud

By Nicholas Kristof December 9, 2010 4:01 pmDecember 9, 2010 4:01 pm

There are plenty of reasons I’m proud to work at the Times — the brilliant reporting, the numerous prizes — and also reasons why I’m occasionally embarrassed. But I’ve never been prouder of this newspaper than over something that doesn’t have to do with its coverage or mission, but with a hiring decision.

In October, one of our best war photographers, Joao Silva, was badly injured by a landmine in Afghanistan. He was on a patrol near Kandahar when he stepped on a mine, and he continued shooting afterward as long as he was strong enough to hold his camera. The military treated him wonderfully, evacuating him by helicopter and providing first-rate medical care — but Joao still had to have both lower legs amputated.

Joao was not actually a member of the Times staff, but a contract employee — a common arrangement for photographers in war zones. Still, he was a part of the Times family, and he had risked his life getting photos to our readers. So, I recently learned, after the amputation the Times committed to hire him as a full-time staff member.

Frankly, news organizations don’t always treat their people with the professionalism they deserve, and that is especially true of photographers and freelancers. Freelance photographers may have it worst of all. One could easily imagine a company saying that a photographer who lost his legs was now on his own. I once worked with an American television correspondent who was badly beaten up in Asia and left unable to work — and his network pushed him out of a job.

So to see a news organization agree to hire a photographer the moment he is so injured that his future work is in jeopardy…well, to me that’s just the classiest thing a company can do. It’s the kind of thing that builds loyalty among the rest of us. And it was classiest of all that there was no announcement of it; I found out only by chatting with someone in an elevator.

In Joao’s case, here’s hoping that he recovers fully and graces this newspaper with his superlative photography for many decades to come.

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About Nicholas Kristof

This blog expands on Nicholas Kristof’s twice-weekly columns, sharing thoughts that shape the writing but don’t always make it into the 800-word text. It’s also the place where readers make their voices heard.